JOIN USHe was speaking on the occasion of St John’s Medical College and Research Institute being recognised as one of the Centres of Excellence for research in CVD by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA, and United Health, UK. It is one of the 11 centres across the world, to be recognised.
According to Dr Christina Rabadan-Diehl, programme director, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, NIH, poverty enhances the risk of CVDs as poor deal with more stress and have easy access to junk food.
New plans
St John’s also unveiled three research projects - Inspire, Spread and Prepare - to be carried out over five years under Indian Cardiovascular Research and Advocacy Group.
Inspire (Indian Stroke Prospective Registry), will involve 10,500 stroke patients at nearly 100 different hospitals in India. Under Spread (Secondary prevention of coronary events after discharge from hospital) will focus on clinical trial in secondary prevention of heart attacks in 10 hospitals.
In Prepare, (Primary Prevention Strategies at the Community level to Promote adherence to prevent CVD), the study will analyse prevention of heart disease and strokes at three rural communities in three different regions - Bangalore Rural, Rajah Muthiah Medical College, Annamalai, Tamil Nadu and Sevagram, Maharashtra.